› added 6 days ago

8

TIL when airship USS Akron tried to moor in San Diego, the sunlight warmed and lightened helium. As the ship became uncontrollably light, 3 crews were carried further aloft. Only one survived.

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8MJZ TIL that Mahi-mahi stay with their mate and if one of the pair is caught, the partner stays in the same location awaiting its mate to reappear.
Y7PQA TIL about Low-background steel, any steel produced prior to the detonation of the first nuclear bombs in the 1940s and 1950s and now typically found in shipwrecks. It is often used for modern particle detectors because more modern steel is contaminated with traces of nuclear fallout.
69bo7 TIL the art of surfing was first brought to California by Hawaiian prince Jonah Kūhiō Kalanianaʻole and his brothers, who taught Santa Cruz locals how to surf in 1885. He later brought surfing to England in 1890.
N7rxQ TIL that Charles Darwin went on an expedition as a naturalist to gather evidence that would refute the notion of evolution. Upon his return, he eventually came to conclude the opposite and created the Theory of Evolution.
wLo7W TIL that the ADE 651; an inert rod of metal with a plastic hinge, was sold as a bomb detector. It was used by the militaries of Iraq, Afghanistan and more than a dozen other countries for years before anyone noticed that it did nothing at all.